Tomorrow will be Kinder
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: Three young men face futures uncertain; one blindly reaches, another waits with humming blood and a cool heart, and the last falls slowly into a dream long deserved. One-shot.


Title: **Tomorrow will be Kinder**

Fandom: Harry Potter

Word Count: 1,719

Summary: Three young men face futures uncertain; one blindly reaches, another waits with humming blood and a cool heart, and the last falls slowly into a dream long deserved. One-shot.

* * *

**1. Dumbledore**

He couldn't hide his flinch when five familiar fingers gripped his shoulder. He knew this hand probably better than he knew his own. Many times he had marveled at its ability to bring him to seemingly impossible highs and irresistible pleasures. He had studied those long skilled fingers in the dim light of the evening, where they flexed catlike on a quill, sharp and pointed. Often in his dreams he would see this hand descend from a place up above and he would reach out with his own knowing that twinkling eyes and a kind special smile waited in the graceful sunlight over his head. He had felt those hands trail lazy patterns on bare skin and grip, tight and wanting, on his hips. He had never known anything by kindness by these fingers.

Now a casket lay open before them.

"Albus," came the call softly, like a blade slipping quietly between unguarded ribs. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He would not break – not here – not in front of her.

The fingers tightened on his shoulder. It was the gentleness of the action that destroyed him. Still he could not imagine those hands that he loved committing the very crime that lay evident before them.

His own hands were clenched into fists, shaking with the effort not to reach for his wand. His palms were wet with sweat. He lifted them only to find that his fist would not unclench even as he stared at it stubbornly.

The weight on his shoulder left and the two hands quickly appeared to cup his own. Like plucking open a delicate rose, they peeled back his fingers one by one. Each lifted finger revealed a deep red bite left by his nails. The blood pooled into his palms and dripped slowly drop by drop to fall on the funeral home's floor.

Disgust filled him. His hands were filthy, covered in the blood of his sister. He thought he might be sick but he felt only hallow inside. Drip by drip by drip blood fell on the floor.

The hands around his own tightened. Albus wondered how he could have ever have suspected those hands of violence, or murder, when his own were so obviously gushing red.

A strange tension left his body at this conclusion. His confusion swam away leaving his head feeling light and dizzy. How strange, how quickly he had suspected those hands that had shown him nothing but love could deliver the greatest evil. He truly was a fool.

Gellert's blue eyes twinkled at him as he finally raised his head. The boy who had stolen his heart – black as that heart must be – smiled sweetly at him. He wanted to tell him to stop that. That he wasn't deserving of that smile – that he had been tainted, ruined – if there was anything good to ruin in the first place. His mouth wouldn't move. That sweet smile had struck him defenseless.

"There are those beautiful eyes. Come now, Al. I promise you'll feel better in the morning."

And those hands clasped his own, giving direction, purpose, as they had always done. And he, like a man drowning, clung desperately on to his last lifeline.

Those hands promised a brighter tomorrow. He was just fool enough to believe it.

**2. Riddle**

He didn't sleep the night before Hogwarts.

Some boys like to try to catch Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in action – it was his habit to see if he could catch the exact moments before his life changed. He'd had three such nights in his life.

The first was the day that he learned of his family, or his mother at least. He was very young. He thought that it would only be a matter of time before someone realized that he was missing and come to get him. He waited with all his small belongings stuffed into his pillow case and lay with his eyes open all night waiting for the sounds of a mother to come and get him. With morning's dim arrival came the shattering of some deep-rooted hope inside his chest. That night was the last time he ever wished to be rescued.

On the second night he made Jimmy Pikes cry without touching him. The next morning a bunny would be found hanging from the rafters.

The last time he had felt his life changing was very recent, little more than a month ago. He'd sat on his bed and stared at the unharmed dresser, seeing flames so vividly in his mind he sometimes had to stop and look away from their brilliance. It was that night that he felt he very blood seem to change, almost as if he could feel the very magic flowing hot and sticky through them, throbbing in its desire to come free. Fire danced in his palm that night and he watched it lick his palm without burning and wondered if this was what it meant to be a god.

This night he does not sleep. He can feel his life switching into place like the tiny gears of a clock falling into line with a click, click, click. His dull room seemed to gray around him, already fading into just another cruel memory. What was a place like this to a boy like him? Nothing more than a fading impression – scarcely more than a blurred dream.

His meager possessions are once again packed and ready to go. A feeling not unfamiliar to him begins to creep through his body and he is startled to find a longing for home building in him, calling towards tomorrow as a blind pup does its mother. The future calls so strongly to him it is an effort not to fling himself from his bed and out into the streets to proclaim himself to the world outside.

Beware, his blood seems to purr, I am coming. I have arrived.

And he spends his night listening to the sounds of a better tomorrow.

**3. Potter**

Pain and exhaustion thrums through his body to the beat of his pulse. It begins at his scar and works its way all the way down to the souls of his feet. His limbs feel heavy; he makes no move to make them rise. Instead he slowly blinks open his eyes, fully intending to close them and fall back into oblivion if the world outside is too ugly to bear.

He finds himself looking into the tangled mess of Hermione's brown hair as she sleeps curled next to him. Suddenly he is aware of a heavy arm across his chest and Ron's familiar snoring close behind him. He can feel a thick blanket jumbled by his waist and his eyes pick out the flickering patterns of a fire dancing across the walls.

He knows that he fell asleep by himself. He knows that the dormitory bed which he chose was too small for three grown people, nor is there are fireplace located in the boy's dorm of Gryffindor tower. Knowing these things does not seem to help him deny the evidence against them.

There is a grunt beside him and Ron snuffles closer, a heavy head falling onto Harry's arm. Harry looks at this best friend and can't help the fondness in his eyes. Ron's eyes are red-rimmed and his freckles stand out against his pale face, washed clean of grime and dirt for the first time in months. His mouth is open slightly and warm breath ebbs and flows against Harry's skin.

Harry had never imagined that sitting across from a red-haired boy on a train could ever lead to this. He traces his eyes over the other boy, where they catch on the small scratches that litter his neck and hands and linger darkly on the thin white scars on his arms, a reminder of Harry's failure in the fifth year. It doesn't take much to imagine Ron if he had never met Harry – carefree, scar less, surrounded by his siblings and grinning without a trace of shadows across his eyes. Something twists in his guts and his eyes trace the scars again. This – this is what come with being friends with Harry Potter.

"You're thinking too loud."

Harry turns his head and finds Hermione's sharp brown eyes piercing him at half-mast. She looks exhausted – and happy. There is a smile around the corner of her mouth, a lazy glee in his eyes.

"I didn't hear you two come in," he says, because Hermione is right (of course) but there is no point in reminding her of it.

"No, I expect you didn't. I think Madame Pomfrey has been slipping Dreamless Sleep into the pumpkin juice, trying to calm everyone's nerves. Ron and I scarcely made it here before we crashed."

Right, here. Harry's mind is waking up – familiar dark pathways coming to life and suspicion and wariness blinking awake. "No offense, Hermione, but why exactly are you here. This is boy's dormitory and the bed isn't exactly big enough for three."

"Don 'e 'thick, 'arry," muttered Ron against his arm.

Hermione smiles. "Ron's right on this one, Harry, you're being daft. It's hardly a bit of magic to expand a bed."

"Yes, but – "

"What, you think that just because old You-Know-Who – "

"Voldemort," Harry corrected instinctively. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, all right. You think that just because you got rid of _Voldemort _that you can get rid of us too? Well tough luck, mister, you're stuck with us."

Ron grunted in assent on his shoulder. The arm that was draped across Harry's chest tightened into a hug, which Hermione soon joined, laying her head against Harry's chest and resting her palm flat against his heartbeat.

Harry's body went warm. Exhaustion and ancient pains still thrummed through his body, but his head felt grounded and his thoughts light. Tears dripped down his eyes without him noticing, but Hermione and Ron merely nestled closer to him as he shook.

Somewhere across the distant night the clock tower chimes midnight and an owl hooted in the darkness.

"Come back to sleep, Harry," whispered Hermione, soft and sweet. "It's a brand new day. Things will be better, you'll see."

And Harry closed his eyes and allowed himself to sleep.


End file.
